


The Chance to Choose

by CatKing_Catkin



Series: Mollymauk Lives Fest [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Amnesia, Amnesiac Mollymauk Tealeaf, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beauregard & Mollymauk Tealeaf Friendship, Brainwashing, Character Death Fix, Dehumanization, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic Friendship, Family Feels, Fictional Religion & Theology, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Good Parent Nott (Critical Role), Happy Ending, Hugs, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Makeover, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Minor Character Death, Mollymauk Tealeaf Lives, POV Mollymauk Tealeaf, Protective Nott (Critical Role), Recovery, Rescue, Reunions, Self-Discovery, Speculation, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Temporary Amnesia, Torture, deadnaming, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 23:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17672096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: Cree is the one who brings Molly back to life. Cree takes him back to the Gentleman and, in payment for her loyal service, the Gentleman helps Cree hide Molly's return from the rest of the Mighty Nein, and helps her in her efforts to find a way to make him remember Lucien's life.When all her efforts fail, Cree washes her hands of Molly entirely rather than continue to be confronted with the utter ruin of her dreams and plans, and the Gentleman makes a little gold in making Molly disappear.The rest of the Nein eventually find out, and come running to the rescue. From there, the team is there to pick up the pieces as Molly wonders what it means to be Mollymauk Tealeaf, and wonders if he even has that in him anymore.(Written for the Mollymauk Lives Fest, Day 5, prompt "fortune")





	The Chance to Choose

**Author's Note:**

> BIG AUTHOR'S NOTE WARNING: This fic starts off with heavy themes of dehumanization and involves Molly going through an extensive period of time being referred to and treated as Lucien. I do my best to portray this as the manipulative, violating, awful thing it is and everyone involved dies a well deserved death, but it might still be understandably upsetting for some. 
> 
> If you would like to skip ahead to where that part of the fic ends, please ctrl+f and search for "Who's Jester?", which will take you to the half of the fic where Molly's situation takes a turn for the better. 
> 
> If you would like to skip this fic entirely with that in mind, there are of course no hard feelings. Just take care of yourself.
> 
> Meanwhile, I know this might be only tangentially related to the prompt, but I got stuck on the idea of "reversal of fortune" and things spun out from there.

The Gentleman had told Lucien stories of the Mighty Nein.

Then again, the Gentleman had also sold Lucien to the man with the scalpels and the needles and the straps on the table and the cold, cold eyes, and the Mighty Nein had been the ones to rescue him. And so, yet again, he had no idea what to believe.

_When he first woke up under the ground and clawed his way back into the world, he found Cree waiting for him, and Cree took  him back to see the Gentleman. The man, together with Cree, told him all about the Mighty Nein and how they were a band of cutthroat mercenaries who had gotten Lucien killed. “And we can’t have that happening again, can we?” he drawled, chin in one hand, looking the two of them over with an inscrutable expression. “Cree’s heartbreak was a terrible sight to behold. She’ll look after you, Lucien, while I find you a…slightly safer line of work. Out of the way.”_

_And indeed, he spent a while staying with Cree, in between working for the Gentleman hauling and handling shipments of things he was told not to think too much about. In between work, Cree tried to help him remember who he’d been. She told him of the Tomb Takers and their goals and their plans and all the good work he’d done._

_Privately, he thought to himself that he sounded as much a cutthroat bastard as he’d been told the Mighty Nein were. He still tried to remember, for her sake, but…it was like there was a wall in his head, and anything that slipped through the cracks would wake him up at night in a cold sweat, and he saw her getting more and more disappointed by the day._

_Until at last the Gentleman invited him in to a meeting with the wizard – Molly never did learn his name – and the wizard handed over a sack of coin and the Gentleman nodded and the man spoke a few words that made the air buzz harshly with power and then everything went black, before he woke up in a small, dark cell so far away._

_Things had gotten bad, after that, and stayed bad for a long time. The wizard would take his hair and his nails and the tip of one horn and his blood, so much of his blood. He would strap Lucien down and do things that hurt him and then record how and why Lucien was in pain. The cell was utterly devoid of light except when the door was opened for food to be left. It seemed to come without rhyme or reason but it felt like there was never, ever enough of it._

_But his eyes were the worst part, and his voice. His eyes seemed to stare straight through Lucien even as he carved into him and his voice was always flat or level as he called Lucien “the subject” or, worse still, “it”._

_“Lucien” was not a name that fit him, was not a name he_ wanted _after what Cree and the Gentleman had done to him for no reason he could understand. But it was still better than “it”._

And then just like that, it all came to an end. One morning he woke with a start from a feverish doze to the sounds of an almighty commotion going on outside, sounds of magic and shouting and impact and pain. Then he heard a voice he recognized as the wizard let out one long, gurgling scream…and then silence.

The silence didn’t last long. Lucien heard footsteps, voices talking too quietly for him to make out words through the heavy cell door. He didn’t get close enough to the door to try, of course – he had no idea who the voices belonged to, and no one besides Cree and the Gentleman knew he was here, and no one at all  _cared_. Just because his captor was dead – and that thought still sent a thrilled shiver down his spine – didn’t mean things were going to get any better.

But all he could do was sit huddled in a corner, taking what reassurance he could from the walls at his back and listening to the sound of cell doors being opened one by one, starting from one end of the hall and getting louder as whoever it was drew nearer. Until at last, he heard a  _click click click_  of the lock being worked from the other side of the door and then the door was being swung open, sending a shaft of light scything across the dark floor.

The light was dim, little more than torchlight, but it still kept him from seeing who was standing there staring at him. All he could tell was that they were small, but he could also  _feel_  the force of their gaze like a physical heat on his face. For several long seconds that seemed to last a minor, eternity, they stood and he sat and they just stared at one another.

Then slowly, oh so slowly, moving like they were the one with something to fear, the stranger crept closer, their –  _her_  feet almost soundless on the floor. As she got closer, he was able to make out details – green skin, a tangled nest of dark hair, big pointed ears and big yellow eyes that were looking at him with  _such_  concern as to make his heart ache.

He barely flinched when she reached out a hand, but she saw it anyway, and for a second he felt a rush of sick fear in his chest and that was  _odd_ , he’d learned to stop feeling fear what felt like a lifetime ago because it wasn’t as if it did any good. But something about the look in her eyes  _got to him_  in a way all the torture and experimentation hadn’t done for a long time, and that was  _frightening_.

The goblin seemed to deliberate with herself for a moment, then came to a decision with a single nod. She reached across the distance between them to rest a hand with feather-light tenderness on his cheek, before moving to trace the lines of the peacock feather down his neck. Her touch seemed to leave a trail of sparks in its wake and he swallowed because he couldn’t remember  _ever_  feeling anything so intimate and gentle.

Cree had hated the tattoos. Given him makeup to cover them up. Called them marks of a bad decision. But of course, that had stop mattering once the money changed hands.

He realized there were tears in her eyes a scant second before he realized there were tears in his, too. “Oh,” she breathed. “Oh Molly, Mollymauk, it  _is_  you!”

Then she threw her arms around him. He was so unprepared for that, for even her slight weight, that he slumped back against the wall and bit back a wince as injuries old and new were jostled at the impact and the force of her grip. The goblin let out a yelp of surprise and hastily pushed away, getting back to her feet almost before he’d had time to process what was happening. “I’m sorry!” she said, the breathless tension of the moment before replaced with a frenetic energy. “Oh, I’m sorry! You’re hurt and, and I should have noticed! Oh, and you’re all chained up, too! Hang on, let me just…” She trailed away, kneeling down before him again and producing a few lockpicks from a pocket somewhere, before going to work on the manacles binding his wrists and ankles.

Lucien remembered how to speak just in time. “Magic lock,” he croaked in warning, his voice hoarse with disuse. Unfortunately, she seemed so startled by the sound of his voice that her gaze snapped back to his face and then her picks slipped and then she pulled her fingers away with a yelp as the lock rebuffed her with what he knew to be a fairly sharp jolt of electricity. The goblin sat back, scowling at the manacles, sucking on her fingers before declaring “oh _fuck_  this,” with a remarkable vehemence and going back to work.

This time he stayed quiet and this time she stayed focused and this time she proved so deft with her lockpicks that she undid the magic sealing the locks, too. Each lock clicked open and when they did, she took charge of easing them off and setting them aside. “There we go!” she said, her voice breathless, a watery smile on her face. She actually sat down, and carefully pulled one of his arms towards her apparently for the sake of examining the raw, scabbed skin around his wrists. “Don’t you worry, Molly. I know this must hurt a lot, but Jester will fix you right up.”

Lucien had only ever been called Lucien since he had clawed his way back out of the ground and into the world.

But it was Cree who had told him that name. He didn’t want it anymore. So he decided that “Molly” would suffice, for now. It was a name being spoken with an easy, familiar warmth, and he  _ached_  for more of that.

And yet, it was also clearly a name she expected him to know, as she expected him to know other names. She was letting him go, and so he found that he couldn’t lie to her, even if every inch of him felt tense with the possibility that  _she’d_  sell him off just as soon as he wasn’t who she wanted him to be, too.

“Who’s Jester?”

The name itched at him, stirred something in him just as the sight of her did, but he had nothing more to go on beyond that. At those two words, she froze utterly, eyes going wide, sucking in a breath. Before she could recover herself and before he could remember how to breathe, another voice spoke up from the open door. “Nott? Did you find him?” He and the goblin looked over to see another figure standing there – a tiefling, like him, eyes wide with obvious worry

“Jester,” said Nott the goblin, her voice ringing with a brittle brightness, her gaze darting back and forth between the two tieflings. “He, he could do with some healing, and I know that’s not exactly your  _specialty_ , but maybe just this once you could make an exception while you  _introduce_ yourself.”

Comprehension dawned instantly on Jester’s face, comprehension and then  _sadness_  and then a smile that looked like it hurt even if it at least reached her eyes. “Of course!” she chirped, slipping into the room and coming over to sit on the floor with them. “You go and tell the others. I’ll take care of Molly. Oh!” She turned to face him as Nott darted out of the room. He was so lost, so overwhelmed, that he didn’t even realize she’d taken his arm until a strange, warm energy started to ease beneath his skin. “Do you know your name is Molly? Mollymauk Tealeaf?”

He shook his head. Just like Nott, her expression remained so very gentle. “Do you want it to be? Or do you want us to call you something else?”

He considered the question for a moment, trying to think through the fog in his head. It got easier as all the lingering aches and pains left in his body were washed away on a tide of healing magic. “Molly’s fine,” he finally said, after a minute.  _Mollymauk Tealeaf_  sounded like a grand and fanciful name and he felt like neither, at the moment. But  _Molly_ …that could be a good name. They clearly thought it was a good name. Already, he was finding himself hyperfixated on the way it had sounded ever so slightly different in both their voices.

And besides, even that small acceptance clearly made her happy, and he wanted down to his bones to make her happy in a way he did not understand. “Okay, Molly!” she said, and she actually leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Well, my name is Jester, and we are the Mighty Nein, and you are, too, and we missed you very much…”

Cree and the Gentleman had told him over and over again that the Mighty Nein were bad news, bad people, criminals even by criminal standards and he was lucky to be away from them and safe. But over the next while, Jester and Nott reintroduced him to Fjord, Beauregard, and Caleb. They  _introduced_ him to Caduceus. “We’ve never met,” said the firbolg easily, taking his other hand and taking over from healing him when Jester seemed exhausted. “But I’ve heard good things.” Everyone smiled to see him, they squeezed his shoulder or hugged him gently and Caleb let his cat sit in Molly’s lap for a time and they all told him that it was okay he didn’t remember, they’d missed him anyway.

The last to come and see him was Yasha. She was the tallest woman he had ever seen with a long mane of black and white hair, blue and violet eyes, and the sense of… _something_  behind her, some presence or  _force_. Feeling it and looking in her eyes set off a fierce yearning inside him to be close to her, a need to crawl inside her and take shelter in the safety he knew in his bones she would give him. And so when she said, in a voice ringing with ironclad control against the threat of tears: “I would like to hug you now” it was the easiest thing in the world to say “me, too” and so she picked him up off the floor as if he weighed nothing and wrapped him in her arms and then Molly finally,  _finally_  remembered how to cry.

She stayed with him as the rest of the Nein gathered up their things and looted the tower and prepared to leave. She carried him out to a balcony and they sat together in quiet that somehow felt as natural as breathing. The wind wrapped itself around them like an old lover and somewhere there was a bird singing and somewhere else an eagle let out a cry. Molly sat tucked safely against her side, exulting in the feeling of something beyond stone and stagnant air and hurt, lost in the simple sensation of someone stroking his hair.

He fell asleep without realizing it, and when he woke again he didn’t know where he was, just that he was moving and there was a  _weight_  on him and just as he felt panic rising like bile, just as he started to f flail against it, someone reached out to grip his hand fiercely. “It’s okay, Molly, it’s okay.” Jester’s voice. It took him a second to recognize it, but when he did, he relaxed just a little. “We’re just in the cart. We’re going away from that place.” And indeed, once she spoke, like a magic spell he was suddenly able to pick out details again – the sound of wagon wheels, of hooves on packed earth. “And, and you seemed like you were getting cold so we gave you some blankets!” She reached out to adjust them fussily. As his vision cleared, he was able to pick out a long blue coat, a worn brown one, a tattered grey cloak, a black and grey shawl, all covering him.

“We’re not leaving you.” Yasha’s voice. He realized she’d been beside him this entire time. “And we’re not letting anyone _take_ you. Not ever again.” She sounded as sure and certain as stone, and he found himself rolling over enough to stare up at her, at the harsh shadows cast by the light of the setting sun across her beautiful, _familiar_ face.

“I believe you,” he whispered, and even now he was faintly surprised by how much he meant it. He was also glad that he’d said it, though, because Yasha’s face lit up with a smile as soft as rain and brilliant as the sun. She went back to petting his hair and he closed his eyes to sleep for a while longer with Jester still holding his hand.

When he woke again, he wasn’t moving. There was the heat of a fire on his face, and the light was still tinted with orange but in a way that wasn’t quite _right_ for the sun. There was still a weight on his back, but this time he knew to recognize it immediately as the assorted cloaks of his…friends, yes, that probably was the right word, wasn’t it? And someone had even bundled up more cloth to serve as a pillow.

And there were voices, people talking. Without the rattle of cart wheels and the noise of hooves on packed earth, he was even able to make out what they were saying this time.

“—the right thing?” Beau was whispering. “I mean, if we try to make him _be Molly_ again, are we just doing what Cree did? I feel like we should give him the chance to be someone new. Like he got last time.”

“We are,” Caleb said. “We got him out of there, we are getting him healthy, we are getting him _away_. A lot of things that weren’t possible for him before can be now.”  There was a weight to his words that Molly didn’t understand, a sense that there was some extra _significance_ here that he wasn’t privy to.

“I guess so.”

“When we get closer to a town, we will ask him if he wants to go, we will ask him if he’s thought any further about names. We will show him he, he has _choices_. If we broach the subject now, I am afraid he would say anything in the hopes of avoiding what happened before.”

He could _hear_ the grimace in Beau’s voice. “You’re right.” There was the faint _thump_ and _hiss_ that he dimly recognized as the sound of a log being thrown on the fire. Molly was scarcely daring to breathe. “Fuckers,” she added, with feeling.

_“Ja.”_

“Should we tell him? That they’re dead?”

“…later. Perhaps. If he asks. That, ah, that might be a lot right now.”

“Yeah.” A beat, and then: “They deserved it.”

“I know.”

“But you think he wouldn’t?”

“I think…when you have been under the thumb of someone for a very long time, you grow to love them. You _have_ to or, or you can’t survive it. The Gentleman was a deft hand with a leash. But it was still a leash. And Cree…hah. I have a feeling she learned from the best.”

 _“Fuckers_.”

Caleb didn’t reply right away, but Molly heard a whisper of displaced air, a rustle, and then the faint sound of purring. He imagined Frumpkin settling down in Beau’s lap as the cat had curled up in his, back in the cell. Molly, meanwhile, had let his eyes fall closed, so when he felt the combined force of their gazes on his face, he was pretty sure they still thought he was sleeping. The mound of makeshift blankets he was covered with probably hid the change in his breathing well enough.

“Lucien had a chance,” Caleb said at long last, speaking like a man trying to pick his way across rotten ice, step by painstakingly careful step. “And he gave it up for, for whatever mad, desperate dreams drove him and his Tomb Takers. Mollymauk also had a chance. And it was _taken_ from him. _That_ is what I keep coming back to, Beauregard. They truly were as different as any people could be, right down to how their lives ended, and so to treat his situation as if it were the same as what Lucien left him in before might be just as much a disservice. He _decided_ not to be Lucien. He _decided_ that what he could remember was so _awful_ that he could not bear to remember more.”

“So letting him know enough about Mollymauk to decide…that’s not bad, is it?”

“It doesn’t have to be. He, he remembers, I think. A little. He knows that he knows us. I think he could remember more, if he decided he wanted to try.”

Another thump of wood, another hiss of scattering sparks. “That was kind of what I was thinking, too,” Beau said, once the flames subsided once more. “I just, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being _that asshole_ , y’know?”

“You are _always_ ‘that asshole’, Beau.” Molly could hear the smile in Caleb’s voice. “But someone has to be.”

“Thanks.” Fondness lay thick and plain across the words, mingled with amusement. “I think. So I guess we’ll let him decide if he wants to be a gaudy pain in the ass with jewels in his horns again. And if he doesn’t…”

She trailed away, pensive once more. But Caleb finished for her with scarcely a missed beat. “…then we will simply make certain he is a good person. Is a happy person. Whoever he is. And whoever he is, we will have made stranger friends.”

“Yeah,” Beau said.

 _Yeah_ , Molly thought in unison.

He was pretty sure that they kept talking after that, but the weight of too many thoughts, of too many futures, dragged him back into sleep not long after and so he was never able to remember what about.

*  *  *

On the second day, Nott tentatively sat beside him in the cart and pulled a fistful of sparkling, glittering chains out of a pocket. “I got these for you,” she said. “When we learned you were alive, and where you were. I thought they probably took the ones you had before. So you can have these. If, if you want. It’s okay if you don’t.”

She waited patiently as he took the chains and earrings from her. Molly picked through them thoughtfully, seeing that some were bedecked with charms in the shape of moons and suns or fake gemstones that still glittered wonderfully. Seeing his interest, she passed over a couple of heavy silver and gold rings that he knew _instantly_ would fit right on his horns. When he asked her quietly for a mirror, she produced one from another pocket and passed that over, too.

And so Molly took a look at his face for the first time in longer than he cared to think about. He was unsurprised to see that he still looked tired and weak and wan, though the sight of the peacock feather tattoo free of any concealing makeup still sent a pleasant shiver up his spine. Once he’d taken in those details, he tilted his head to give fresh consideration to the holes and grooves drilled into his horns, the holes in his ears, that he knew were meant to hold decorations of the exact sort that Nott had laid out for him.

He had indeed woken up with some before. But Cree had said it was a bad idea to wear jewelry when doing secret things, when trying to be inconspicuous, and what trinkets he’d had left had indeed been removed by his captor.

He thought to himself that the array of gaudy brightness being offered to him now would help him look less like he’d just spent weeks locked away in a dark cell with no name at all, and suddenly the idea was _immeasurably_ appealing.

“Yes please,” he said at last, setting down the mirror and passing it back to her. Nott’s face lit up with joy, a sight that made his heart feel full and warm, and she didn’t hesitate a moment longer, instead moving to help him with some of the fiddlier clasps. Once that was done, she called Jester over so Jester could offer some makeup. Molly was happy to accept, and by the time they stopped for a rest, he barely recognized himself in the mirror for all the best reasons.

 *  *  *

On the fourth day, he asked about weapons. They’d passed by another cart on the road, one with two broken wheels and three arrows in the wood and a dead horse still in its harness. Everyone was tense, keeping an eye out as they carried on, but there was no immediate sign of trouble. Molly hoped to be armed before there was.

Jester rummaged around in her bag of holding, sticking her arm in up to the elbow, before finally pulling out a couple of battered longswords they’d been meaning to sell in town. Molly knew immediately by bone-deep instinct as he took them that the balance wasn’t right, but that the twin equal weights of a sword in each hand _absolutely_ was.

He went to Fjord to ask for someone to practice with, realized within a few minutes that Fjord was going easy on him, and went to Yasha instead. Yasha knocked him on his ass within seconds, but as soon as Molly was able to suck in a breath where it had been knocked out of his lungs he burst out laughing. Somehow, the rush of adrenaline combined with the pain of the impact combined to make him feel so, so alive.

*  *  *

On the fifth day, he and Fjord played cards, just as a way to pass the time in the back of the cart. Molly picked up the rules quickly enough, and Fjord had some surprisingly obvious tells when he had a good hand. So it was a genuinely delightful surprise when, just after they agreed to bet watch shifts for the night, Fjord turned around and beat him handily.

Fjord looked like he didn’t know whether to be apologetic or pleased. Molly absolutely knew which was better and so, acting on a wild whim, he leaned just a little too close, rested a hand against Fjord’s chest, and said, “The power was in you all along.”

And even if Fjord looked for just a second like he wanted to cry, the joke also made him laugh, so Molly was proud of himself either way, and in the end they wound up taking watch together.

*  *  *

_On the sixth night, he dreamed of a road that split in three directions._

_Really, it was only two directions. The middle path had been split by a long, impossibly wide fissure opening up there, and who could say how much had fallen down into its endlessly black depths. But there was still something to see on the other side, woods and fields and the inviting, diamond-bright lights of a distant town, a place to stay._

_A woman in silver, with hair as white as the moon and skin that seemed to glow with its light, was sitting on the very edge of the drop. She disregarded the danger entirely, seeming to be utterly focused on her needlework, on embroidering elaborate designs into a coat spread across her lap._

_The path to his right was well-kept, filled with cobblestones to make an easy road through a deep, rich darkness. It curved sharply away from the ravine, stretching out back the way he’d come over safe, solid ground. There were no stars overhead, the moon could not reach here, and yet he looked into those shadows and felt no fear._

_But the trees that lined the road were bare and dead, and the air smelled stagnant, undercut with a tinge of iron. An easy road, but a gloomy and joyless one._

_The path to his left was wild and overgrown, little more than a dirt track with grass growing right up to the edges of it. Thickets of thorns lined the path but twined around the thorns were flowers as brilliant as gems, and some of the lush, overgrown trees were laden down with fruit._

_It was not a path he would be able to walk without pain. The thorns would nick his skin sometimes no matter how careful he was. But there was beauty here, and somehow that mattered more. The path was well lit, and others had clearly walked it before him. He could see footsteps in the dirt, fairly fresh ones at that, and if he squinted his eyes and stared far off into the distance he fancied he could even see a campfire glowing on the horizon._

_If he hurried, maybe he could catch up with his friends._

_“Wait,” said a voice, just as he started off, and that one word was enough to make him stop dead. He heard her footsteps drawing near, but somehow couldn’t bring himself to look back at her, couldn’t make himself move. Every nerve and inch of him felt trembling and weak in worshipful awe. This was a voice that he knew down in his bones._

_He felt her presence at his back, saw her light illuminating the path ahead, and knew she was standing just behind him. “Here,” she said, in a voice full of fondness and love. He felt her take his arms to guide them into the sleeves of the coat she’d been embroidering. “The way ahead is cold. You’ll need this, my dearest.”_

_And the coat was indeed so warm as he shrugged it on, warm and soft and safe, smelling of sandalwood and frangipani and all the good things there had ever or would ever be. He stared down at himself, at the rich red fabric adorning him, at the images of celestial bodies and symbols of gods and flowers and monsters embroidered in the finest, brightest fabric there could ever be._

_He turned to face her and didn’t even think before falling to his knees before her, reaching out to take her hands in his and kissing her fingers. “Thank you,” he whispered. “_ Thank you _.”_

_She laughed, light and silvery, then urged him up with a surprising strength. He still couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes, but he felt the kiss she pressed to his forehead, and turned back around when she urged him to. “Travel safely,” she whispered. “My Mollymauk.”_

_This he did, walking on through the thorns and under the moon and through the trees to catch up with his friends. And maybe, just maybe, eventually this path would take him the long way around, back to where he’d been. In the meantime, he could see some grand new sights, together with them._

When he woke, the coat was gone, but it was as if he could still feel it there, under his skin, warming his heart.

*  *  *

On the seventh day, they finally arrived back in town. Their first order of business was to go and see the woman who had hired them to kill the wizard in the first place. “We would have done it for free,” Fjord said, as they waited at the door. “But the money was nice.”

The old woman who answered them was delighted by the good news, and invited them all in for tea. “And who’s your friend?” she asked, smiling at Molly as she settled a steaming teapot down in the center of the table.

The answer he gave felt like the easiest, most natural thing in the world. “Mollymauk Tealeaf,” he said, and offered her a friendly wink. “Molly to my friends.”


End file.
